


Final Step

by hapakitsune



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bridge Scene, Gen, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5738395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han never likes to consider the odds, but as he steps out onto the bridge, he can’t help running through them in his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Step

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure the novelization has this exact thing but I wanted to write my version of it so w/e

Han never likes to consider the odds, but as he steps out onto the bridge, he can’t help running through them in his head. Kylo Ren—his son—doesn’t seem to know he’s there; but Han doesn’t believe it. Ben always knew where he and Leia were. He always knew. 

Han steps out onto the bridge and knows he is about to die. 

Leia believes in Ben. Han does too, deep down. He knows that Ben was once a precocious, clever child. That he was curious, and beloved by those he met. Small, bright-eyed, with a head of wildly curly hair. But steadily, slowly, things began to change. He grew secretive. He spoke, occasionally, of a friend. An imaginary friend, Han had thought at the time. He knows better now. Snoke had been there since Ben was a child, watching and waiting for his chance, slowly poisoning everything good about him. 

Maybe if they had been better parents, more watchful, less involved in their own projects—they tried, they truly did, and they loved Ben. But in truth neither of them had been cut out for the domestic life. And Leia had thought, when Ben proved to be as force sensitive as they suspected, that Luke would be the better teacher. “I’ve never properly learned,” she had said when Han asked her if she was sure. “I can’t teach him what he needs to know.”

Luke used to send them holograms about Ben. “He’s talented,” Luke had said, bright and cheerful. “Oh, Leia, he’s so talented. You wouldn’t believe it. He’s stronger than me, I’m sure of it. He could be the greatest of us all.”

But Luke’s messages had grown wary over time. “Ben is angry,” Luke had said a few weeks after Ben’s thirteenth birthday. “He believes he’s ready for more responsibility here.” In the holo, Luke had seemed old, far older than just past thirty. “He insists that he’s had more training than the other students, and it’s true, but I don’t think he’s ready to help me teach them. He’s still learning control himself. He has so much still to learn.”

And then: “Ben has disappeared,” Luke had said, frantic. Ben was fifteen; Luke had recently accompanied him on a mission to craft his new lightsaber. “When we woke up this morning he was gone.”

And then, Luke, bloodied and hollow-eyed, looking as though he had aged twenty years: “Ben has—he has fallen to the Dark side.”

The story had come out in fits and starts, Luke breaking off every now and then to stare off into the distance, like he was reliving it. “He had a band of followers,” Luke had said. “They are calling themselves The Knights of Ren, and he is their leader. He calls himself Kylo Ren. He says he has found a teacher willing to show him what I will not. _Snoke_.”

If they had only done something earlier. 

Ben—Kylo Ren—no, Ben. Han will not hide from that. _Ben_ had converted those students he could. He slaughtered the rest. Luke had been looking for him, and had only come back in time to see Ben standing over the last of the slain students. “I should have stopped him,” Luke had said, and Leia had turned into Han’s arms, eyes shining with grief. “I should have brought him back to you. Reminded him what the Light is.

“I’m going away,” Luke had continued. “There has to be a way to break Snoke’s hold over him and bring him back to the Light. I believe that.” And that was the last Han ever saw of Luke Skywalker. 

That was fifteen years ago now, and Luke still hasn’t returned. Han loves his son, and he is sure that Leia is right. There is some good in him, but what use is that when it’s buried under so many layers of hatred? When Ben turned his back on it? The Light—the Jedi— _good_ : it’s only any use when they _do_ something. He knew that about himself thirty years ago; he knows that about himself now. He’s never been a hero, because he’d rather compromise and talk his way out of a fight, and maybe, in the end, that’s where Ben got it from. He buried his good instincts underneath self-interest. Like father like son. 

Han loves his son, but Ben has had fifteen years to come home, and he never has. Maybe there is redemption out there for him. Maybe Han is it. But the odds are against it. Still, he promised Leia he would try, and he won’t let her down again. One last time, he’ll do right by her.

Han steps out onto the bridge, calls his son’s name, and prepares to die.


End file.
